Latest revision as of 13:23, 7 May 2020

North American arcade cabinet.

Contra is a run and gun video game developed and published by Konami for the Arcade on 1987-02-20 and is the first in the Contra series. It was later ported to various home computers and special ports that were quite a bit different were made for the NES and MSX2.

Contents

Personal

I have never actually played or even seen Contra in the arcade. My first experience was with the NES game. When I found out about MAME, I wanted to see what Contra was like for the arcade, assuming it would be like a 16-bit version of the NES game, but I was a bit disappointed.

Status

I do not own any of the port and haven't beat any.

Review

Overall: 4/10

Best Version: Arcade

— This section contains spoilers! —

Good

The game is a pioneer of the run-and-gun genre and, at least for 1987, pretty impressive.

Using H. R. Giger's art style as adapted from the movie Alien was a great idea. It gives the game an over all creepy vibe.

Each level is pretty unique featuring new enemies, bosses, and environments.

I like the boss tease as you enter the alien's lair. You see a giant alien head and assume this is the final boss, only to have to face the heart.

Bad

Survival comes less from skill, and more from level memorization. This requires you to spend a lot of quarters. Typical for 1980s arcade games, but not fun.

The contrast in the graphics vary greatly from background to foreground objects. I presume this was done so the players would know where to concentrate their bullets, but the washed out colors of the backgrounds looks awful.

The player's jumping animation is ridiculous looking.

The football player robot boss is lame.

The various ports are much worse than the arcade game.

Ugly

Nothing.

Media

Box Art

The North American arcade cabinet was pretty sparsely designed. It lacked a bezel and cabinet art, but did have a marquee, control panel, and side sticker.

The marquee is a well-taken photo of two buff dudes in the jungle, one sporting a sexy mullet! Great logo art.

A drawn version of the photo marquee. Not sure, but maybe created because of censorship?

The side are features the same dudes in the jungle.

This box was used for the North American Commodore 64 and DOS releases. It uses the same art and logo as the NES box, but reveals a bit more of the background.

This box was used in Europe and the UK for the C64, Amstrad CPC, and ZX Spectrum. It uses the full art, but the title is altered to "Gryzor."